


Twice the Pride, Double the Fall

by squire



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arranged Marriage, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Consent, First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Miscommunication, Porn with Feelings, Pre-TFA, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-13 03:31:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16009382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: Hux finds out he's married through checking the messages on his datapad.He's less than thrilled about it.





	Twice the Pride, Double the Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy our collaborative Kylux Mini Bang 2018 fic - art by the awesome nocturnalknowitall!
> 
> The [lovely sketch ](http://nocturnalknowitall.tumblr.com/post/178251586451/second-art-for-sinningsquires-fic-twice-the) and the [amazing finished piece ](http://nocturnalknowitall.tumblr.com/post/178251587736/art-for-the-amazing-fic-twice-the-pride-double>) that stole my breath away!! Look at all those details!
> 
> DANG and I almost forgot, thousand thanks to my friends Callie and Lizz for reading this over multiple times, cheering me on, and fixing my tenses :) This wouldn't be half as nice without you!
> 
> Tiny warning upfront: There's a hint of dubcon in a non-traditional sense - consent is explicitly given, even though Hux has no real clue what he's demanding, and is too damn proud to ask.

Hux finds out he’s married the same way he found out he’d been promoted, that he’s been given command of the Finalizer, that his stepmother died: through checking the messages on his datapad halfway into the Besh shift.

 

_To: General A. Hux_

_From: First Order Home Office_

_It is our pleasure to officially announce your change in status, ref. the Population directive No. 712-b. You are entitled to legal assistance concerning your property arrangements following your upgraded social standing. The Bureau has elected to exert its right to assign you a life partner, correcting an unfortunate situation arisen by the fact that you have heretofore omitted every opportunity to remedy your status,such as it was unbefitting of a First Order officer. Your recorded preferences have been observed in the decision, as well as your rank and occupation, both factors taken into consideration to ensure a long, mutually supportive relationship…_

 

Hux skims over the rest of the Home Office family-propaganda with growing horror. He had managed to evade this stupid policy for so long. Not only the youngest general of the First Order but the only unmarried one as well. He has simply no time for marital life, not with Starkiller project underway. _A husband will aid you, support you, share your workload_ , he imagines the arguments of the Home Office clerks. Hux doesn’t care for sharing the workload as it would mean he would also have to share the credit. This project is his accomplishment, _his alone_. He has no intention to transfer half of the future praise and glory to some… some… wait, who did they marry him off to?

... _assigning you a husband in the person of your acting co-commander, Kylo Ren._

Oh no.

Kylo kriffing Ren has been haunting the corridors of the Finalizer and plaguing Hux’s day-to-day existence close on six months now, and Hux has yet to see him without that odious metal bucket he calls a mask. Besides stalking around and looking like a caricature of Lord Vader - really, the young “Master” is nearly a foot and good hundred pounds short on that fabled Sith! - he has also managed to build a reputation of a rash and reckless man who comes and goes as he pleases, troops and resources be damned. And this Force-damned mystic, this protégé of the Supreme Leader himself, this _man child_ is now supposed to share everything Hux worked so hard for?

The fact that together with his new husband, Hux has also been assigned new and larger quarters, into which the droids have already transferred all his belongings before he was even done with his shift, does nothing to calm his fury when he finally buzzes the door open and enters what should supposedly be a new and exciting chapter of his life.

 

***

 

A black hooded figure rises from the table when Hux enters, turning towards him expectantly but otherwise remaining silent. Hux spares a brief look around the living quarters, just as bleak and utilitarian as were his own. His sofa, one of the few luxuries he allowed himself, has been moved in here and put in a similar spot against the wall. There is a low pedestal holding what looks like a charred, broken skull - upon second look Hux recognises the cracked, half-melted relic of Vader’s helmet. Aside from this macabre deposit there seems to be nothing personal of Ren brought into the rooms, at least not in terms of objects. In terms of atmosphere, however, the air is acrid with unease and heavy with vague threat.

“Well?” Hux snaps instead of greeting. “I assume you have been notified, too.”

Ren nods. The lack of any other reaction grates at Hux's already high strung nerves. He expected coming to a wreckage of broken furniture and burning slashes on the walls, not to this tip-toeing, eerie calm. There is an explosion coming all right, Hux can feel its vibrations in the tension of Ren's shoulders, in the knuckles of his own fists, but he can't tell when and where the lightning will strike.

“Well?” he repeats. “What are your thoughts?”

“I have yet to form an opinion,” sounds tonelessly through the mask’s vocoder.

“Could you at least now take that thing off when we speak?” Hux demands irritably. He's honestly surprised when for the first time, Ren obeys.

And then Hux is taken aback even more by that youthful, odd and mismatched face peering from under waves of dark hair.  Ren's features are uncomfortably intense, and almost offensive - too mobile, too ready to broadcast every flicker of emotion. It is, at least in Hux's opinion, bad manners and lack of discipline to let everything going through your mind play out on your face.

To make things worse, what apparently goes through Ren's mind at the moment isn't revulsion or outrage at their situation to match Hux's own, but… an open, unassuming curiosity.

First week cadets used to peer from beneath their hats with eyes like that. Full of innocence, before it was taken from them, along with several years of their life.

“We have to find a way around this,” Hux says abruptly. “There is no arguing with the Population bureau, I’m afraid, but I am sure you have no more desire for changing your habits than I have for mine, and aside from some necessary adjustments to our conduct in public we don't have to-”

“Why are you so certain this won't work?” Ren interrupts him. Ah, there is that ever contrary nature Hux was looking for.

“Are you so naive to believe it would? I stayed unmarried for a reason.”

“The reason being that there was no one to match your intellect? Nobody on your level of dedication, drive, loyalty?” Ren presses on. Then he adds:

“You should reserve your judgment,” and manages to make the boast sound almost bashful.

“If there is such a person, it certainly wouldn't be you,” Hux scoffs. “I have yet to see you care for anything else than yourself and your own mystic agenda.”

“This match was not my choice either,” Ren says quietly, even though Hux can detect a hint of gritted teeth in his tone. Without his mask, Ren is so easy to read.

“I hope you take no offence but I have brought up the question of our marriage with the Supreme Leader. He is my master, first and foremost. He… condones the arrangement.”

Ren had clearly hoped for the opposite, that much Hux can tell. At least Ren is not a complete puppet then, even if his doubts prick like an unexpected sting in Hux's pride. Anyone should surely feel _flattered_ by being matched with the youngest general of the First Order! It's absurd, he doesn't want Ren, he doesn't want anyone… But wait, Ren keeps talking.

“... the Supreme Leader is wise, and I trust his guidance. I am willing to put in as much effort as it takes.”

“Why would you be so easily compliant with this… farce…” Hux objects, before the solution hits him.

“Oh. You seek to control me. To keep a leash on my ambition, is that it?”

“If anything, this arrangement should serve to tighten my own bonds to the First Order and better align me with its cause, or so I was told,” Ren hisses. “Your paranoia is unbecoming.”

Then he softens. “It is true that we haven't always seen eye to eye but there are facets of you, general, that I admire. We could make the best of this, learn to know each other, to improve each other…”

 _Oh no,_ Hux thinks, horrified.

“You are taking this seriously. You actually want this, don't you?”

He collapses onto a chair and pulls out a cigarette, grasping it unlit between his fingers and using it as a pointer in his gestures.

“The marital bliss and all that Home Office nonsense. What other romantic drivel have you imagined? Candlelight and flower petals?”

Ren snaps his fingers and the end of Hux's cigarette sputters with a small flame. Hux nearly bites through his tongue, stifling the surprised yelp.

“I didn't think of bringing candles,” Ren shrugs. “Forgive my ignorance in the matters of romance. There was no place for it in my training.”

Hux can barely believe his ears. This is like a cheap holodrama.

“You're telling me…”

“Yes.” Again, the admission is delivered with an odd mixture of bashfulness and pride.

Hux sneers.

“So what are you doing here?”

For the first time in the course of this surreal evening, Ren appears subtly confused.

“Are you not glad? We are to be partners, in every sense of the word. You're going to be my first lover, and if fate has it, the only one I'll ever know. I have no greater offering of honesty and goodwill than this.”

Hux never imagined that the one weakness he would find with Ren would be his completely outdated and ridiculously romantic _ideals._ But now that he's found it, he's going to exploit it to the seventh circle of hells and back.

“Oh stars,” he feigns a gasp. “You really think that anyone would see your ignorance as a gift?”

Ren freezes. With that self-absorbed, imposing man it's the equivalent of a lesser man shrinking.

“Then teach me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. It would be a good starting point to build trust between us-”

Hux interrupts what's building up to another quote from the Population Bureau leaflet with an abrupt rise from his chair. He keeps his tone low and crisp, enunciation clear.

“I have neither time nor taste for taking care of a hapless virgin. This marriage is a professional arrangement, I have no patience for messy and fumbling amateurs. If I can't prevent you from meddling into my command and having to share my meals and living quarters with you, the least I expect is being satisfied in bed.”

Ren's face blanches during that little speech, his pale bottom lip is quivering. If he's going to cry, Hux is going to laugh.

“You shouldn't be mocking me,” Ren gets out at last.

“Give me a reason not to.”

The mask flies through the air and smacks into Ren's open palm. He puts it on as he's turning on his heel and then he's out of the door, Hux's laugh ringing off the walls of the corridor.

Nobody can track him down for three weeks.

 

***

 

Towards the end of week four, it occurs to Hux that this might be Ren's best idea up to date. He sets aside an hour after the end of his shift and locks himself up in his office, reading through the finest print on the Population Bureau Terms and Conditions page. Specifically, the section titled _Grounds for divorce._

Four weeks. The marriage consummation clause sets down four weeks as the latest deadline. Two more days, and Hux is free.

That's why it comes as a particularly nasty surprise when Hux enters his quarters the next evening and almost trips over his own feet at the sight of a stark naked man lounging in an indecent display on his - no, their - bed.

He almost doesn't recognise him as Kylo Ren at first. And not because he'd never seen that ever-masked Force user naked, no, Hux has quite the eye for male physique and he could easily imagine what was hidden under those robes. What throws him off instead is the easy, comfortable posture, the very picture of unselfconsciousness.

It doesn't fit with the memory of the man, covered from head to toe in monk-like robes, who haltingly offered him his virginity almost a month ago.

Damn, Hux was never _this_ comfortable in his own body even all by himself in his own quarters, let alone in the presence of another. Let alone bollocks naked!

But bare as his body might be, Ren's expression is a different matter altogether. Hux remembers that face looking more _naked_ that night nearly four weeks ago than it does now. Now Ren might be just as well wearing a mask, immobile and foreboding. Gone is the openness and goodwill - this Ren has already formed an opinion about their marriage. And despite the obvious intention expressed in Ren being naked in their bed, Hux has the distinct impression that the opinion is by no means favorable of him.

When he speaks, even his tone of voice is new, less inviting, with none of that old bashfulness - where the old Ren was asking questions, this new Ren is stating facts. In an almost bored tone, broking no argument.

“To be clear, if your nitpicking bureaucratic self thought you could get out of this due to some technicality, you're wrong. The Supreme Leader doesn't tolerate failure, and I will not allow this to become one.”

Hux sets his datapad on the nearest piece of furniture, the cabinet beside the door. It clatters on the hard surface, louder than Hux expected, drawing attention to his shaking hands. He folds them behind his back instead, gripping his own wrists hard. Ren follows the movement with narrowed eyes and the beginning of a nasty smirk.

“Where have you been?” Hux tries stalling. Tries to stare anywhere else than on that beautiful, mouth-watering body, now rising from the bed and approaching him, slowly, non threateningly and yet very much like a wild beast on the prowl.

“Remedying the faults of my training,” Ren grins, without mirth, more like a vulture. “And now I am back, to consummate our marriage.” He breathes the last word inches from Hux’s face, his breath sweet-scented and yet reeking of absolute contempt.  

Hux once encountered a young game animal while driving a speeder around the base, some kind of hexapod with long neck and tail. It froze when it caught sight of the speeder, eyes like saucers in the headlight. He feels very much like that now, trapped and immobile in Ren's presence.

“How unfortunate,” he rasps on his suddenly dry throat, “I'm not in the mood for any such activity tonight.”

“Are you not?” Ren smirks wider and steps closer, bare chest almost brushing against the lapels of Hux's coat. “Because this seems to suggest otherwise.”

And with that leery remark, he parts the front panels of Hux's tunic below his belt and cups the now painfully obvious bulge in Hux's trousers. Hux wants to flinch. He pushes into the contact instead, his face heating in shame at his own weakness.

“Don’t worry, Armitage,” Kylo Ren drawls, “I’ll make sure you will be satisfied.”

This is so much not what Hux wanted or ever imagined - he could just walk away, call in the sentry droids if necessary - but he also never wanted something more in his life than for the pressure on his cock to continue, and the mixed signals from his body are making him dizzy. His stomach is in knots, his vision narrowed to Ren’s mouth - wet, bitten, _lewd_ \- and he absently thinks that kissing those lips wouldn’t perhaps be so awful…

He braces himself against the door and lifts his chin. “Do your worst.”

Later, Hux doesn’t remember how his belt became undone seemingly on its own, or how he got from the door to the bed. Ren never wastes time kissing him. Hux simply and suddenly finds himself flat on his back, still fully clothed, only his trousers pushed halfway down over his ass, just enough to free his half-hard cock. He didn’t even lose his greatcoat, it’s still under his back, probably wrinkled horribly, and Hux doesn’t have the mental capacity to mind because Ren drops to his knees next to the bed and swallows his cock in one smooth move.

Hux barely keep himself from screaming. Ren’s mouth is so good - plush, wet, tongue massaging his whole length, cheeks hollowed in perfect suction. Hux almost chokes on his own tongue when he feels himself slipping into Ren’s throat. He only ever heard about this - and it’s quickly becoming too much, his cock rapidly filling to full hardness in Ren’s clever mouth and urgent arousal coiling deep in his gut, too fast, too _good_ , his balls tightening and all his muscles going rigid-

“Kriffing hell!” Hux swears in frustration when Ren releases him from his mouth, the now fully hard, angry red and thoroughly spit-coated cock standing proudly and obscenely from the gap in his uniform. He lifts his head and glares. “Why did you stop?”

“This will do,” Ren observes almost clinically, voice a bit raspy but otherwise still with that infuriatingly bored undertone. And before Hux can ask him what that bloody means, Ren crawls over him on all fours, positions Hux’s cock under himself and sinks down without any preamble until his ass is flush with Hux’s groin. His hole envelops Hux’s cock in wet, tight heat and exploding pleasure.

This time, Hux does scream. He has no time to adjust to the sensation before Ren starts moving. Every roll punches the air from Hux’s lungs, his mouth hanging slack with helpless moans. Ren’s body is squeezing his cock, milking it with every move, and it’s too much, he’s not going to last, no mortal man could withstand this-

“Well, keeping you satisfied will require significantly less work than I expected,” Ren is saying dryly when Hux can hear again over the slowly subsiding rush of blood in his ears.

Hux blinks, disoriented. He’s not sure what the hells even happened. His softening cock is lying lamely across his open fly. Ren is still hovering over him on his hands and knees, and a trickle of slick and come is slowly running down his thighs. He’s not even fully hard, and already flagging.

The humiliating comment clicks in Hux’s brain. He’s mortified, blood rushing to his face again. He scowls to mask the embarrassment but there’s no erasing what he himself used to mock Ren. _Amateur_ , rings in his ears. He came so fucking fast that their belated wedding night was over before he knew what hit him.

“Probably the whole corridor knows that at least you had a good time,” Ren continues his cruel observations. “For the next time, I would appreciate for you to execute more professionalism and less noise.”

Next time. Hux gulps, his throat raw. There will be a next time? Of course. He can’t leave it like this, with Ren getting to crow and humiliate him for every little thing.

 _I am going to fuck the smug right out of you next time_ , Hux thinks with vengeance. Ren only laughs and walks away into the fresher, presumably to clean himself off.

Hux lets his head flop back on the mattress, squeezing his eyes shut. _Well done, Armitage_ , a tiny voice that sounds like an amalgam of all his Academy instructors sneers at him from inside his head. _You have done really well for yourself on your first time._

Then it hits him and he shoots back to sitting, hastily putting himself away and fixing his fly. His performance might have been awful but after all, it _was_ his first time. But it couldn’t have been Ren’s. Sure, he must have prepared and slicked himself up right before Hux came in, but still.

Where _was_ Ren those three weeks?

 

***

 

Hux sleeps like the dead that night, exhausted even though he barely _did_ anything except laying back and letting himself be wrung out like a rag. So when something wakes him, it's only into a heavy-lidded half-lucid state, head clinging to his pillow as if weighed down with lead and with no idea what it was that woke him. Something like… gurgling, water running down the sink? And quiet sniffing, muffled sobbing sounds, like, like…

The door to the refresher opens and Hux squints against the sudden glare, the light coming from there obnoxiously bright in contrast with the darkened bedroom. Ren walks out, bare shoulders curled on himself, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. He stops short when he catches Hux's eyes open, watching him.

“Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you.”

Everything about this is wrong, from the absurd, unselfconscious _normalcy_ of the apology to the roughened, too deep voice muttering it, too fast, still short on heaving, hiccupping breath.

“You've been crying.”

“Nonsense,” Ren grates out, too fast. “I needed a glass of water, that's all.”

Hux's brain is still annoyingly slow coming online but he struggles, lifting himself up on one elbow and kicking at the sheets tangled around his feet. Fuck this enormous mattress and these overlarge shared covers, trapping him in this soft bed and in that strange time between sleep and waking where he's not the General and unwilling husband... where he's just Armitage Hux.

Young cadet Armitage, once again watching, unseen, another boy coming out of the communal bathrooms at night. They would wait until one or another smug faced officer left, gait cocky and snickering to themselves, before they would sneak out - face red with tears and humiliation, taking short, uneven steps, trembling hands clenched around a graciously tossed tube of bacta cream…

To survive the Academy, every lesson became cemented in Hux’s memory. Not all of them were given inside the lecture halls or out on the training yard. Very early on, Armitage Hux learned that favours could be traded, and that sex could be a currency. And most importantly, that business wasn’t fair.

A sharp intake of breath interrupts the flow of memories and brings him back to the present, into his shiny new marital quarters and with the hulking monster of a husband standing in front of their bed. He's looking down at Hux, eyes two gleaming slits in the back light. He's a man, strong and brutal, not a boy, powerless and exploitable. Not someone that could be hurt…

“Was that why you lied about your own experience? Because you were scared?” Ren asks, cocking his head. Curious, as if Hux was a specimen to dissect. Hux curses his sleepiness making his misplaced concern obvious and so easily readable. He can't show any vulnerability in front of the man he hates.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

He can hear Ren's sigh, barely audible over the rustle of sheets as he settles back, ready to roll over and ignore Ren until sleep claims him again. In the last moment he aims what should be a short, angry glare over his shoulder, designed to drive home a point - but that's a mistake. Because suddenly Ren's face is mere inches from his, those dark eyes wide open, soft and deceptive like quicksand. He's saying something.

“You will not remember this in the morning.”

Hux's mind must still be dulled and malleable with sleep because he finds himself frozen, deafened, transfixed by those eyes and voice reverberating through his skull, encountering absolutely no resistance. Compliance feels _good_ , like laying his head back onto his pillow, soft and warm and infinitely welcoming.

“I will not remember this in the morning,” he repeats agreeably, closes his eyes and sleeps, peaceful and empty.

 

***

 

Next time comes and goes, and many times after that, with more or less the same result every time. Hux is determined but Ren has always some trick up his sleeve that has Hux coming like a schoolboy long before he’d promised himself he would. Always the first, never having enough stamina to see Ren even begin to unravel.

Other than the fast and hard, almost pornographically perfect fucking, there's no intimacy between them. They never kiss. Ren always prepares himself and prefers to be alone for that. The only thing he requires from Hux is his cock. After a few instances of earning sore wrists from the Force keeping them above his head, Hux learns to keep his hands to himself.

After a few weeks, Hux is not even sure why Ren goes along with it. He’s obviously not getting any gratification from it, aside for the opportunity to mock Hux to his heart’s content afterwards. It’s Hux’s almost daily dose of humiliation and he doesn’t know why he puts up with it - well: his brain thinks he doesn’t. His cock knows very well why he puts up with it. Hux might be disgusted with himself but ends trying to fuck Ren into silence almost every night, all the same.

His working performance has also improved since he’s getting orgasms on the regular. His working relationship with his husband is, on the other hand, on the freezing point.

They don’t talk unless it’s absolutely necessary. Ren still comes and goes as he pleases and Hux still doesn’t budge an inch from the bridge. A couple of times, they clash over contradicting orders - Ren wants a ‘trooper contingent for one of his missions and Hux has something to say about his usual body count. Hux receives a formal notification from the Population Bureau about proper marital conduct in public. He doesn’t know what punishment Snoke meted out to Kylo but it doesn’t impair his sexual appetite.

They fuck like rabbits at night and hate each other at day. Marriage of dreams.  

 

***

 

“You’re offering me...”

“I want to suck your cock, yes.” Hux says it with more confidence than he feels but still suavely enough.

He wants to see Ren coming apart, even if just once. He never had a cock in his mouth but how hard can it be? Ren makes it seem like nothing, swallowing Hux with ease, milking him with his throat and making him spill in a matter of seconds. Even has enough energy afterwards for a humiliating remark about the length of Hux’s pubes or the taste of his come.

Hux hates himself for being so weak that he actually extends his grooming routine and takes care to eat a piece of sweet fruit every now and then - and still Ren always finds something to ruin his post-orgasm glow. If nothing else, it makes Hux want to try again and again.

One day, Ren must break. One day, Hux will make him scream. Why not with his mouth? He thinks he’s caught Ren sneaking a glance at his lips, once or twice. It might be worth a try.

Ren stares at him for a long moment, expression unreadable.

“Why?” he asks at last. There’s a tremor of something under the overlying suspicion, as if he genuinely didn’t know - or perhaps as if he could guess, and didn’t trust the conclusion, as if he wanted to hope–

It’s a crack, and Hux latches onto it and keeps pushing.

“I want to,” he lifts his chin. Licks his lips, slowly. Teasing. Daring.

“Is it your only reason?” Ren questions. It’s getting repetitive and Hux is losing patience.

“It’s long overdue,” it slips out of him and he immediately knows it was the wrong thing to say. He can see the words _it’s long overdue that you cede control to me_ finishing themselves in Ren’s mind behind the rapidly darkening scowl. Hux’s competitiveness is bad enough; Ren’s is fierce.

“You wouldn’t handle it,” Ren dismisses him, already turning away, and Hux sees red.

“Come on, you’re not _that_ big.”

He knows it was the second wrong thing to say when his knees connect painfully with the floor. The invisible but crushing weight of the Force then lifts from his shoulders and he glares up at Ren. His knees ache but damn him and his cross-wired libido, something about this situation is turning him on as well.

Above him, Ren pulls himself out and gives himself a few good strokes. Hux almost reconsiders his plan at the sight - he’s never seen Ren fully hard before, and his length is entirely proportionate to the rest of his body. From this perspective, it’s intimidating.

“Watch the teeth,” Ren warns him curtly before he steps closer and feeds the tip into Hux’s waiting mouth.  

Hux can’t fit it all in, not by a long shot. He tries to keep his teeth covered by his lips and work his tongue the way he remembers Ren doing it. It soon turns messy, with drool escaping the corners of his mouth and dripping down his chin. It throws off his concentration. He tries to swallow the excess in his mouth but it’s hard to coordinate between the shallow bobs of his head and the breaths he needs to draw in between…

Above him, Ren huffs out an annoyed breath. “Are you trying to make it awful or does it just come naturally?”

Hux gives another of his - probably inexpert - licks and pulls off, looking up. Ren isn’t even bloody looking at him, his stony gaze is locked somewhere in the far corner. He might as well be counting banthas judging by his bored face.

“Fuck my face, then, if you don’t like what I’m doing here,” Hux grouses in exasperation. Ren snorts.

“You don’t want that.”

Hux has no actual idea but he still growls: “Try me.”

“Fine.” That’s the only warning Hux gets before Ren grips the back of his head, the pull on his hair burning like flash down Hux’s spine, hooks his thumb around Hux’s jaw, forcing it wide open, and shoves his cock all the way into Hux’s throat.

Hux gags immediately. Blind panic seizes him and his chest convulses in the instinctual response to the lack of air. He blacks out and when he next comes to, it’s to himself lying curled on the floor, heaving and gasping, with tears rolling down his cheeks and the taste of vomit at the back of his mouth. He swallows repeatedly, desperately trying to keep it down. He won’t retch all over Ren’s boots. He won’t.

And the worst is, Ren didn’t even come and now he’s tucking himself away, smoothing the front of his tunic and walking away. His boots stop briefly in Hux’s field of vision.

“Useless.” Hux hears the word all too clearly, even over the roar of blood in his ears.

Hux dares to lift his head and wipe away the tears only after he hears the door close. His tongue stings, his jaw aches and his throat hurts as if he swallowed a ball of sandpaper. His knees are sporting twin impressive bruises and to add insult to the injury, there’s low but annoyingly persistent arousal stirring in his groin. Despite all of that, or perhaps because of all of that, he’s ended up half-hard, and Hux doesn’t know what makes him ashamed more. The frustrating thing about all that is also the knowledge that he has no chance to just take his cock out and bring himself off - the single, perfectly timed word _useless_ keeps ringing in his ears and ruins every chance at orgasm he might have had tonight.

And those nagging thoughts don’t help. Hux doesn’t know what he hates more, the weakness of his body or the weakness of his mind that keeps conjuring scenes for him, spiralling into insane jealousy. How many times Ren got his face fucked during those weeks away for his gag reflex to disappear. How many cocks he swallowed before all his tears dried up and transformed into that condescending eye roll every time Hux forgets himself and bucks his hips into that perfect tight heat. How many. It doesn’t let him rest.

 

***

 

Sometime during the night, Hux wakes to a feeling of warmth pressed against his back, soft and comfortable. Slow, regular puffs of air are tickling his nape and it takes Hux several seconds to place the sensation, to realise the meaning of it. It’s Ren, still asleep, spooning him from behind, wrapped around Hux like an added blanket.

It’s warm. It makes Hux want to get back to sleep just like this. It’s never happened before.

Ren always takes great care to rise before Hux, leaving his side of the bed cold long before Hux wakes for his shift. And during the night, he never strays from his side either, always clinging to the edge of the mattress, one long arm often hanging down, fingers scratching the rough carpeting in their involuntary dreamy movements. Hux watches him sometimes when he can’t sleep. Watches the beautiful, unselfconsciously sprawled, inaccessible body and then falls asleep consumed by thoughts of other hands, strangers’ hands, allowed to touch. To feel.

Now their bodies are touching from nape to knees and Hux can feel Ren’s chest, expanding and constricting with regular, deep breaths, pressed against his shoulder blades. A strand of Ren’s hair is resting on Hux’s shoulder and Hux catches it before it can slide away, feeling the texture between his fingers. It’s just as soft as he’d imagined.

He feels Ren’s eyes on him before he notices the change in his breathing. He would know that particular itch anywhere, always aware of Ren’s eyes following him through the corridors of the ship. Even through the mask, Ren’s attention is a tangible thing. And without it…

Hux turns in the loose cage of Ren’s arms, meeting those eyes, still half-lidded with sleep and for once maskless and unguarded, and drinks them in. Ren isn’t moving away.

“This is new,” Hux whispers.

“I was… I am sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything I didn’t ask you for,” Hux reminds him. Ren still looks sorry.

Hux doesn’t let go of Ren's hair when he leans in, and it's the easiest thing for their lips to meet, just a brush, not even a taste, just twin unspoken questions that meet in the middle. It’s unhurried, almost timid, so much at odds with Ren’s usual brash and relentless energy. One of his hands slides around Hux's shoulders, slowly, carefully, as if he's not sure that he won't be rebuked. As if he wasn't the one rejecting touch, every time.

Hux meets the invitation half-way. He nuzzles his face along the line of Ren's shoulder, drags his lips across the musky, slightly damp spot where Ren's arm was pressed against his body in sleep, licks along the defined line of Ren's chest. His fingers find the nub of a nipple and he rubs it experimentally, rolls it between his fingertips as it hardens. Ren arches his back, pushing his chest into the touch.  
  
A sigh, and then there are lips against Hux's ear, hot shuddery exhale and the tip of Ren's tongue tracing the outer shell of it, teeth closing on the lobe and tugging. Hux huffs out a surprised laugh and pinches Ren's nipple in retaliation, and then they're both laughing, Ren in tiny helpless giggles and Hux in low chuckles, still unused to the sound. He feels so light that he would surely soar away were it not for Ren's hand splayed against his back, inching lower, pushing and bringing them closer together.

Ren always sleeps in the nude, a careless habit that Hux secretly envies, unable to shake off his Academy ways. Now it’s something he’s glad for, it makes Ren’s need obvious, trapped against Hux’s belly and growing harder with every shift and slide of their bodies. Hux squirms on purpose and delights in the sharper hiss of Ren’s breath, of the instinctive press of his hips.

Ren’s skin tastes faintly of salt and a little bit of the bland soap in their ‘fresher, and deeper beneath it is something sweet, like burnt spice, something delicious. Hux indulges briefly in the thought that all this belongs to him now, no matter what happened before, nobody else will ever again touch Ren like this–

“Possessive,” Ren laughs again, and there's no malice, only delight.

“You're making me,” Hux growls, teasing the sensitive skin with his teeth, and in a flash of boldness reaches down between them and wraps his fingers around Ren's cock.

Ren sighs and rolls onto his back, arm still tight around Hux's shoulders and pulling him flush to his side. Hux keeps nibbling at the heaving chest spread like an offering - irresistible, that's what it is - and keeps sneaking glances at his own hand working Ren's cock, full and straining. He dips his fingers lower to tease at his balls and Ren spreads his legs without prompting. It gets to Hux’s head faster than spice, and he redoubles his efforts. Something - a chin, or a cheek - bumps lightly against the crown of Hux's head pressed against the pulse hammering in Ren's chest. He's watching, too.

Hux hopes Ren likes what he sees. Here at least he's not at a complete loss. It doesn’t seem all that different from touching himself, it’s mostly the angle that’s odd, and Hux wonders if it feels better or worse for it-

“Better,” breathes Ren, one hand clinging to him and the other gripping the sheets. “I like your hands, so elegant, like the rest of you-”  
  
Hux was able to ignore his own arousal up to now but at this unexpected praise, his cock gives a jump inside his sleep bottoms. Unable to help himself, he grinds his hips forward and ruts against Ren’s side a few times, desperate for some friction.

“Oh,” another delighted laugh, and then Ren is rolling them over as if Hux weighs nothing, well, compared to Ren he probably doesn’t. They end up with Ren looming over him, elbows braced on both sides of Hux’s head, knees on either side of Hux’s hips. Hux feels pinned, intimidated and sheltered at once. It’s a wonderful feeling.

“Beautiful,” Ren whispers, hair falling around his face and tickling Hux’s eyelids. Slowly, carefully he brings his hips lower and grinds them against Hux’s groin in perfectly timed rolls. "Slender. Exquisite. So well put together, like a work of art."  
  
Hux gasps and can’t do anything else than hold on, both hands gripping Ren’s sides. He’s hot, he can feel his face burning. Each murmured word, each torturously slow wave of pressure on his painfully hard cock trapped inside his bottoms just ramps all the sensations higher. His lungs aren’t getting enough air. Something stings at the corners of his eyes. He must be red, panting, looking a mess-

“Perfect,” Ren groans into his ear and Hux’s orgasm hits hard. White spots dance behind his eyelids as the tightly wound coil of pleasure inside his groin snaps and the shockwave courses through his body, up his spine and down to his curling toes. He’s dimly aware of Ren moaning and rutting out of rhythm against him, of the almost-painful pressure against his still twitching cock and then of the spill of wet warmth against his belly. He blinks his eyes open, he wants to see Ren’s face - but that’s buried in the crook of his neck, Ren’s panting breaths matching the thudding of Hux’s heartbeat in the vein under Ren’s lips.

Slowly, Hux comes down from the high and awareness creeps in. They’re glued together with sweat and come, Hux’s sleep bottoms are soiled and stuck to his skin and Ren is very likely drooling onto him. His weight is borderline suffocating. Hux has never felt so accomplished.

But there’s also the wistfulness that he never seems to shake off for long, already rearing its head to spoil everything. They could have had this all along. If they haven’t met like they did. Bitter, disillusioned, damaged goods. Years ago, they could have met, guileless cadet Hux and young Jedi killer Kylo, and they could have had a romp like this in a storage room by the hangar bay, hot and hasty and intense, exhilarated and filthy afterwards.

They would have had to hide it from everyone else. Their little dirty secret.

Now they’re only hiding it from each other.

“I wouldn’t believe they taught you this, too.” It’s out of Hux’s mouth before he can think better of it.

“What?” Ren peels himself off him enough to support himself on one elbow. Tucks a strand of his hair behind his ear. His mouth is still soft but his eyes are already losing their warmth, apprehension darkening their previous colour of slow cooked honey.

“To be so….” Hux searches for the right word. “Messy,” he settles for at last. _Gentle_ , his mind corrects, silently screaming for his mouth to stop ruining everything.

Ren tenses in his arms. The deep line of frustration is back between his eyebrows. He lifts his arm and a piece of clothing - the undershirt he wore yesterday - lifts itself from a nearby chair and floats into his hand. He uses it to wipe his come off Hux’s abdomen.

“I don’t know,” he begins and halts, “I don’t know how to be. What you want. I don’t know _what you want_ , Hux.”

Oh, if only Hux knew that himself.

“What about what do you want?”

“I don’t want you to fight me… fight us, all the time.” Ren sighs, shaking his head, and sits up. Hux already misses his warmth. The line of Ren’s back turned to him is one graceful arch, marred by red scratches across his ribs, the traces of Hux’s fingernails.

“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t standing in my way,” Hux reminds him, irritated. Their reprieve was too short, they’re already back at their normal.

“I’m not… that’s exactly it,” Ren mutters bitterly.

Then he turns to Hux again, and this time his eyes are wide, beseeching and terribly sad. Hux’s breath hitches. He’s seen that look somewhere, in his dreams maybe…?

“This was just a dream,” Ren says, and Hux’s heart gives a painful twinge of regret even as his mind accepts the truth of it at the bottom of Ren’s eyes. Just a dream. Too beautiful to be real.

“This was just a dream,” he agrees and lays his suddenly heavy head back on the pillows.

When he wakes up, it’s to a cold bed as usual. Some ten minutes still remain from his night cycle, the chrono on his nightstand blinking away seconds in a disinterested rhythm. His head is uncharacteristically foggy and when he rolls to sit, the fabric of his sleep bottoms unsticks painfully from his thighs.

Ugh. Wet dream. Hasn’t had those since the Academy days. He can’t recall any details, just a vague feeling of relief and satisfaction. He can only hope that Ren hasn’t read his mind during the night.

There's light under the door to the refresher but try as he might, Hux can't discern anything else coming from there than the sound of running water.

 

***

 

The alarms start blaring when Hux is pouring over the latest Starkiller development overviews in his office, and for a moment he thinks it must be a drill - before he remembers that he would be the one to order it. The Finalizer is stationed at a dockyard with several TIE assembly lines, they needed to replenish the racks and install upgraded weapons, the planet was supposed to be safe and loyal to the First Order...

Several Resistance light cruisers, support corvettes and a formidable swarm of starfighters just jumped into the system in a coordinated attack aimed at the Finalizer. Hux would be actually impressed by the number of craft they managed to rally together if it didn't concern him as well. Hux doesn’t know if their plan is to weaken the First Order morale by taking down their finest ship - barring the Supremacy, of course - or if they have a bone to pick specifically with him. Have they got wise to his Starkiller project…?

 _So vain_ , a wisp of thought, not his own, brushes against his mind, and Hux scowls. He will not rise to Ren’s bait when they’re under attack. How typical of Ren to show up to the bridge when the battle is already unfolding, and being of no help whatsoever. Hux hasn’t even acknowledged his arrival - it wouldn’t do letting himself be distracted. Let’s show Ren the bearings of a true commander.

Hux’s attention flicks between the tactical holo projection and the continuous stream of updates, short barks of numbers, firepower, distance. The core of the Resistance fleet lurks just beyond the Finalizer’s fire range. The foremost group of Resistance fighters, on the other hand, jumped out of hyperspace too close for the ship’s heavy cannons to provide an effective cover fire, and they’re agile enough to sneak between the laser lines of Finalizer’s close range armaments. A Star Destroyer of this size always has to rely on its onboard fighters when it comes to a dogfight, and damn the Resistance for somehow sniffing out that half of the Finalizer’s fighter array is currently out of commission, dry-docked planetside for necessary upgrades, the ship’s underbelly left under-protected and vulnerable. Their remaining squadrons have been released and they will eliminate the pest, eventually - but not before the pest deals some damage, and there’s only to hope none of it will be significant. Hux takes a breath for his next command-

“Fighters, target the cruisers,” booms out next to him, in a voice laced with more authority and self-assurance than Hux thought possible from the farce of his co-commander.

“Coordinate your fire on the engine sections.”

Hux’s head whips to the side. Ren stands next to him on the bridge as if he _belongs_ there, and Hux bristles when he hears one of his lieutenants relay the order to squadron leaders without even waiting for Hux’s confirmation.

“We’re not in their fire range, the cruisers are not the immediate danger to us, the starfighters-”

“They’re too many, our fighters would be outnumbered.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Hux hisses. “But without their cover, we’re free target-”

Out there, the majority of TIEs gets behind the enemy lines as the X-Wing pilots clearly expected them to engage them in fight, not just to fly over them, and the first Resistance cruiser is left crippled and without control when a precisely coordinated fire hits a weak spot in their engines. The large ship begins to drift closer, drawn in by the planet’s gravity well.

The tactical holo projection flickers as there’s a momentary overload of information input; when it straightens out again, most of the enemy starfighters have broken formation and abandoned attack, turning back to help their cruisers.

“Fools,” Hux allows himself a fleeting smile. “Undisciplined scum.” Had they pressed the attack, the Finalizer would have suffered - but now their forces are scattered and split, drawing back to protect their own and losing their main advantage - closeness to the ship hull, the protection of the blind angle of the Finalizer’s ventral cannons.

“Rebels. Always rushing to the rescue of their friends,” Ren chuckles through the vocoder, in agreement with Hux's assertion.

“Bring the ventral cannons online. Lock on the enemy fighters and fire at will,” Hux gives the order with relish. Two more Resistance ships have been turned into a lump of scrap metal floating in space, their fighters scrambling to protect the lifeboats.

The Finalizer’s fire picks mercilessly at their enemies. One burst of flames after another, the fighter forces on the battlefield are evened out, and the technological superiority of the TIEs begins to show. The handful of X-wings who persisted in the initial attack scored a few hits but it's mere scratches to the thick plating of Finalizer’s hull. Hux calls off the Aurek squadron to deal with them and is unexpectedly pleased when Ren nods to the order.

Soon all that remains from the event that hardly deserves to be called battle are a demoralized flock of enemy starfighters, one stubborn corvette about to be torn apart by Finalizer’s laser cannons and several disabled, abandoned ships. The rest has jumped away. Hux waves his hand towards the spectacle behind the viewports.

“Shall I order to ready your ship? Do you wish to finish it?”

He's read his husband's file, of course, and he knows what a skilled pilot Ren is. He doesn't know how else to say _thank you_ without having to actually say it.

“There is no need. Your pilots can handle the situation.”

Looks like Ren found his own way of being grateful without compromising his reputation.

 

***

 

At the end of the shift, instead of retiring directly into their quarters, Hux stops Ren before he can disappear to whatever he does in his free time and invites him to his office.

“For a drink,” he explains to the inquisitive tilt of Ren’s mask.

“That little skirmish hardly deserves a celebration.”

“We are celebrating _our_ victory,” Hux replies and waits with bated breath. After a moment, Ren nods and takes his mask off.

Once seated, not as comfortably as they would be in their quarters but also not as awkward, Hux calls back upon the nagging questions he carries as a leftover from the battle.

“How did you know they would pull back when we attacked their support ships instead?”

Ren takes his time to respond, and when he does, it’s strangely poetic. “They think it's nobler to save what they love than to destroy what they hate.”

Hux clicks his tongue. It might be poetic, but it’s also soft-hearted. “That's how they're going to lose.” There’s no victory without sacrifice, and without discipline. The First Order knows all about the former, and diligently cultivates the latter.

Ren nods slowly and Hux sips on his drink, letting his mind wander. How does Ren know so much about the Resistance mind set? His file starts at him being a twenty-five year old novice of the Knights of Ren. It doesn't mention his previous name, his parentage, anything about his background. He must come from the Rebels, and defected from them judging from the way he hates them, Hux realises with sudden clarity, and it warms him - or perhaps it's the drink - that someone has actually seen the advantage of the First Order and _chosen_ to be a part of it, chosen it over the rest of the Galaxy, chosen him…

No, Ren has not chosen to be with him. He has been saddled with Hux just as Hux has been saddled with him. Hux would do best to remember that. And where there was a choice involved, Ren had chosen nameless strangers, _professionals,_ whores, stars-know-who over his husband - Hux swallows a too large gulp, the liquor burning its path through the sudden cold down his chest and stomach, when he reminds himself who exactly he has to blame for that.

Their conversation has lapsed into silence. For once, Ren doesn't seem awkward but almost comfortable. So of course Hux has to scratch that eternal itch of his and ruin it.

“Your aptitude in command surprised me,” he begins, a little long-winded. Strategic.

“You have hardly let me onto the bridge before,” Ren points out.

“The idea of shared command never seemed feasible to me,” Hux admits. “Especially with you. You're hardly a team player, Ren.”

“Neither of us is,” Ren agrees. His glass is still practically full, he barely dipped his lips in it. Meanwhile, Hux has already refilled his once and is about to again.

“Seeing that we could cooperate on the bridge…” he gets to the core of his proposition, choosing his next words carefully. “Could the other shared aspect of our marriage be a more… cooperative activity as well?”

He doesn't have to specify which aspect. There is barely more to their marriage than their shared rank and sex.

Ren puts down his glass. He also puts on a subtly confused expression. It might be genuine but Hux believes that after all this time, he can at least read Ren well.

“The only thing you expected from these activities was to keep you satisfied. Are you perhaps not?”

Yes and no, Hux thinks, undecided what to say aloud. He’s all too well satisfied physically, not at all emotionally. But how can he admit his emotional needs after he laughed at Ren for having them? His pride doesn’t let him.

“It seems just a bit one-sided, is all,” he says in the end.

Ren shakes his head again, the laid-back pose he had just a moment prior abandoned. He now sits at the edge of his seat, tense and angry. Again.

“What we had on the bridge was _unity_ . What you want in the bedroom is _getting even_.”

“Is it not the same?” Hux only half-jokes, half means it seriously. What does he know about unity? He’s not a team player, that much has been agreed.

“It’s not the same at all,” Ren sighs, gathers his mask and walks out of the office.

That night, Ren rides Hux with his back to him, facing away as if he can't stand the sight of Hux's face. Maybe he can't, maybe it _is_ off-putting. Hux can't quite control his expression under such onslaught of pure physical pleasure and his scrunched brows and slack jaw can't be pretty… Or maybe the fault lies with his body, his narrow, bony shoulders, his pasty white skin that never saw natural sunlight, his flat pectorals and feeble upper arms, nothing like Ren's toned, broad, perfectly proportioned body… If the feel of Hux inside him can't make Ren come, the sight of his weak and subpar body would hardly help.

Hux bites his lips, feeling his arousal dangerously abating. That wouldn't do, Ren would forever laugh at him if he couldn't at least keep up an erection. He lifts himself up on his elbows, eyes following the beautiful curve of Ren's back. He watches the stretch and yield of Ren’s hole as he fucks himself on Hux's cock, slow agonizing drags up and fast drops down, his firm ass bouncing a little with each thrust and punching out a little helpless grunt from Hux's panting mouth. He doesn’t dare to vocalise with any more volume; the lesson from their first night well remembered.

Ren is silent, as usual. His self control is another enviable thing, the contrast between him and Hux's inevitable loss of control a constant source of mockery. And yet it must feel good for him, he must _like_ to be stuffed full of cock, the stretch, the friction, why would he keep initiating sex at all if it was just a chore for him? Maybe that's the reason. Hux has defined sex as his marital prerogative and Ren could be determined not to give Hux a single reason to divorce him, out of spite.

Acting on a spiteful whim of his own, Hux lifts his hand and rakes his nails down that broad expanse of Ren's back, five red lines blooming in the wake of his touch. It reminds him of something. Some good dream he once had, maybe. It looks like Starkiller beam over fallen snow. His own mark of destruction. Ren's breath hitches and the rhythm of his hips stutters.

Intrigued, emboldened, Hux sits up and wraps himself around Ren's back. He half expects Ren to shove him off and lean away but instead Ren presses into the touch. Hux drags his teeth across the red lines starting at Ren's shoulder and then licks them in a broad stripe, tongue rasping at the welts. Ren's eyes are squeezed shut and his ribcage is heaving under Hux's hands. Hux chances a peek on Ren's cock, standing hard and red against Ren's stomach, a single bead of pearly white fluid at the tip. Hux must be doing something right.

He plants another filthy lick-kiss to those lovely marks on Ren’s nape and reaches to wrap his fingers around his cock. “Let me take care of you.”

And just like that, the spell is broken.

Ren bats his hand off: “That's not what this arrangement is about.”

Words from their failed wedding night flash in Hux's memory: _I don't want to waste time taking care of a virgin…_ Anger rises in him, at himself, for being such a damn coward, and then swiftly at Ren for being so petty about it even after such a long time. He bites into the meat of Ren's shoulder and bucks his hips up, fucking into Ren with vengeance.

Ren reacts immediately, snatching the control back. He doubles his rhythm without even breaking sweat, that bastard, and adds an extra roll of his hips that pushes that perfect ass against Hux’s groin on every downstroke. And like an additional torture, that little twist of his hips every time just the head of Hux's cock is inside him, stretching him wide. Hux can't stand it, he's been too hard too long, and the anger at his futile efforts is what pushes him over the edge even harder than usual.

Hux collapses back and concentrates on catching his breath while Ren gets up without sparing a glance for Hux and heads for the refresher, probably to sort out his own orgasm. So that’s settled. It’s clear that he enjoys the act of sex… he just doesn’t enjoy sex with Hux.

Hux closes his eyes, defeated, and tries not to imagine what Ren must be thinking about when he’s with him, or later, when he’s jacking off under the cleansing spray of the shower. The face, or faces, of whoever taught him how to fuck so damn good. Ren has turned fucking into _art_ , Hux is sure of it. He has a marvellous body and he can work it to his every advantage. But his heart is not in it… Maybe Ren’s heart is still with whoever was his first.

Hux scoffs at his own silly sentimentality. He wanted to leave feelings out of this marriage, he specifically asked for satisfying sex with no emotional baggage attached, he turned a young man who wore his heart on his sleeve away from his bed - and he got what he wanted. He should be glad.

 

***

 

Hux listens to the lieutenant’s report and doesn’t bother to hide his increasing satisfaction.

“Sir, we were able to slice into the captured ship’s navigational computer and it seems their previous course originated in the I-7 sector.”

Location of the Uba system, a hive of various smuggling activity since the days of the Old Republic. Makes sense that these scoundrels would hail from there. It’s been their bad luck that they tried to cut their journey short over the First Order territory.

“Did you search their ship?”

“Yes sir. Their cargo waybill says scrap metals, headed for one of the Sullust refineries in the Outer Rim. The sweep yielded no hidden cargo. They’re smugglers all right - there’s a New Republic warrant on one of them - but -”

“Press them to talk,” Hux interrupts his subordinate’s ramble. “I want to know what business they had here, taking such a roundabout course to Sullust. If it’s really true and they’re not trafficking anything, the more reason to suspect they’re spies.”

The report from the interrogation room comes not even a half hour later. One of the smugglers admits that the ship carries an undeclared cargo. Whole four canisters of tibanna gas.

Hux walks into the hangar at a swift pace. Tibanna, even unprocessed, is extremely valuable. This catch would mean a sure promotion for a lesser officer and as for Hux, who is already a general? He will find a way how to extract a favour from the High Command for this, he is certain of it.

Ren appears at his side out of nowhere, matching Hux’s brisk strides with infuriating ease and yet somehow radiating nervousness. Not that anyone but Hux would notice. Everyone just sees the mask and tries not to piss themselves. But Hux has become quite adept at reading the subtle tells of Ren's posture and mannerism. Living in close quarters does that to a man. You can hate the other with all your might but you can't help but observe.

Hux would rather not have Ren watching him and obstructing his search of the ship but in the end he can’t prevent his co-commander from doing his co-commanding duty.

“You said they were smuggling tibanna?” Ren asks as they are walking up the boarding ramp of the battered freighter.

“Do you ever pay attention to the reports sent to you? Yes. They were on the run from the I-7 sector. The Kril’dol tibanna refineries are right there, they must have stolen a transport.”

“Then something is wrong.” Ren pulls off his helmet, sniffs the air and begins to pass his gloved hand over the smooth surfaces. Feeling through the Force, most likely.

Hux rolls his eyes at the mysticism and goes about his search. He doesn't need Ren to divine the location of the cargo for him, he's captured a fair share of smugglers already and knows their tricks.

He soon spots the shinier edge of the seemingly solid wall panels and smirks. So easy. Flipping it open requires only a little effort, and behind the fake compartment wall opens a secret crawlspace. Four cylindrical canisters are stashed here in a neat row, shining dimly in the faint glow of the circuitry.

Hux doesn’t even get to gloat before Ren takes one look at them, grabs Hux’s hand and begins to drag him away and towards the freighter ramp.

“What in Sith hell-”

“No dust,” Ren hisses, pointing to Hux's shiny boots even as they stumble one over another, soles dragging across the floor. Ren all but runs and Hux struggles to regain his footing. But at the mention of dust, something flickers at the back of his mind. He isn’t an expert on tibanna transport technology but he’s heard about the static locking used to seal the unprocessed and highly explosive gas, how it draws out dust from every nook and cranny of the ship and deposits it on everything, polished leather notwithstanding-

“The tibanna is not static-locked,” Ren continues, “I sense a-”

They make it to the top of the ramp when the ships shatters with an explosion from inside. The blast throws them off their feet. Hux flies through the air, breath punched out of his lungs, before he stops abruptly and painfully against the hangar bay wall, just under the first row of TIEs. He doesn’t even have time to roll over when something heavy barrels into his back. Hot pain flares through Hux’s ribcage and up his wrists, he’s certain he’s broken his hands - damn his luck to serve as a cushion for Ren's own landing!

And then Ren’s weight slides off him and Hux looks over his shoulder just in time to see the flames. It’s a giant ball, growing and swallowing everything in its path, a split second and it reaches them, and of all deaths, Hux has never imagined himself _burning_ -

The flaming inferno rages around them, the roar deafening, and Hux forces his eyes to unsqueeze. They’re not engulfed in flames. The fire is held at bay by an invisible bubble of power, held in place by Ren’s outstretched hand.

Even in shock, head still reeling from their fall and body sizzling with adrenaline at _not dying immediately_ , a part of Hux’s mind analyzes what it sees. The range of destruction left by the explosion, the intensity of the flames-

“That was just one canister!” he yells at Ren over the hiss and crackling of the machinery around them devoured by fire. “Tibanna containers are tough but under these temperatures and pressure-”

Second canister blows up, adding to the hellfire. The bubble shrinks around them before it resettles, Ren using both arms now to keep it up. They’re not going to make it, not if the other two canisters explode too.

Taking a deep breath and releasing it on a scream, Ren tears apart the trap door of the hangar bay with his mind, opening it to the vacuum of space. Everything not locked down is immediately sucked out - the burning wreck of the freighter, the debris from both explosions, and all the remaining tibanna. The vacuum instantly kills the flames. Hux has enough presence of mind to hook his elbow around the TIE magnetic mooring line and grasp the sleeve of Ren’s robe. The pull of vacuum lasts only for about three seconds before the emergency energy shields go up, but damn if those weren’t the longest three seconds in Hux’s life.

Just enough seconds for Hux’s ever scheming brain to realise it’s been a trap, and he’s walked straight into it. Either the Resistance or some competitor for a general post within the First Order must have been behind it. They set up the smugglers, knowing the Finalizer would capture them. The prisoners spilled the secret too easily. They knew that just a mention of tibanna would lure Hux aboard - tibanna is so valuable that any commanding officer worth his salt would want to personally oversee the extraction. If it wasn’t for Ren, Hux would have been dead, his ashes scattered all over the hangar.

Hux looks at Ren, stupefied.

“You… why?” he croaks. The air is full of the finest ash, it clings to everything, turning their faces an uniform shade of grey.

“We are husbands,” Ren says almost inaudibly, taking wheezing breaths between every word. He’s still on his knees, hair hanging down around eyes. When he lifts them, Hux is alarmed to find that they’re bloodshot, glassy from the exertion. And he keeps talking.

“As little as it means otherwise, at least it means we should keep each other from harm.”

Hux blinks. _As little as it means_ … the ash stings his eyes but it's nothing compared to the sting of those words.

Then Ren wheezes again and finally it hits Hux that it’s not a natural sound of breathing, no, there’s something seriously wrong with Ren’s lungs - and is that blood, deep red trickle making its way through the grey crust down his chin? - and then Ren collapses, and Hux is shouting for the medics, and that tiny analytical part of his brain can’t stop remembering.

When the first explosion went off, Ren was standing behind Hux on the top of the ramp. He took the full impact of the shock wave, using his body to shelter Hux.

 

***

 

Hux enters his quarters after two days spent in the medbay -  two days too long, if you ask him - and immediately he orders the environment controls to ramp up the ventilation and bring down the temperature. The quarters haven’t been opened since the morning of the assassination attempt and the stuffy air is making the smell of bacta, still clinging to his skin, absolutely unbearable.

Hux showers and crawls under the covers at his side of the bed. He could get comfortable for once, sprawl himself all over it and indulge in the extra space. But just the idea of it feels wrong. That side of the bed is Ren’s, always has been. _Always will be_ , a tiny voice at the back of Hux’s mind adds, much to his consternation.

The rooms are eerily silent and skin crawling empty without Ren. They’re simply too large to be occupied by a single person, that’s it. Even though they barely shared them during the day, only taking their evening meals together to keep up the appearances. There wasn’t anything to talk about over the bland rations anyway. 

Ren is released from the medbay three days later. Hux gets the notification just as he’s closing his terminal for the night. Mere minutes later, Ren walks through the door, and Hux has to stop himself from blurting out something inappropriate. Like _There you are_ or, worse, _Took you long enough_. He hopes the dark circles under his eyes from the lack of proper sleep won't give him away.

“You shouldn't be up yet,” he says instead. He's read Ren's medical file, of course, his concern conveniently chalked up to the fact he's the supreme commanding officer of this vessel and it’s his duty to know the status of his crew, not that he's simply a husband inquiring about the health of his spouse. One way or another, he’d been entitled to read the whole thing and it left him vaguely nauseous. How did Ren survive such extent of injuries, let alone managed to save them both…

“I couldn’t get any sleep in the medbay,” Ren replies, unaware that he just voiced Hux's own secret. Of course he does that, never having any scruples about owning and expressing the very emotion Hux works so hard on burying deep enough to never have to experience it again.

Hux glances at the chrono. It's almost time when he usually calls it a night. He’s already in his sleep clothes.

“Have you eaten?” he blurts out and is immediately disgusted with himself. Such a staple of marital conversation.

“Had the evening meal in the medbay,” Ren shakes his head. He sounds disgusted in his own way, which could be attributed to the quality of medbay food, at least Hux hopes so.

“I wanted…” Ren trails off and never finishes that, and Hux forbids himself to ask. Instead he just watches Ren going about his evening ablutions, the sound of the shower from the ‘fresher oddly comforting where once it used to grate at his nerves. Hux sits on the edge of the bed, fidgeting with the corner of his pillow.

Ren comes out wrapped in his robe.

“I couldn’t deprive you of my presence any longer,” he says offhandedly and it only half sounds like a sarcastic dig. The other half is a genuine light joke, dropped with the slightly awkward anticipation of someone who knows they're not very good at making jokes, and Hux smiles momentarily at that. Then he realises that in the next moment, Ren is going to drop the robe, and his smile falters.

Hux’s body still aches, he can't even take a deep breath without pain, and he hasn’t yet recovered the full range of his hand movement. Physical exertion, however sexy, would be a torture.

“I don't… I can't sleep with you tonight, Ren.”

He thinks he doesn't imagine the crestfallen expression fleeting over Ren's tired face before it's replaced with stony acceptance.

“I would have thought the bed is large enough but I guess we can get an extra bed for the time of convalescence, if you wish.”

It's Hux's turn to momentarily lose the grip on his facial expression, apparently, because immediately Ren narrows his eyes on him - and then widens them in surprise.

“Oh, you meant - sleeping as in-”

“Having sex, yes.” Hux is instantly ashamed at his inability to even discuss these matters explicitly, without unnecessary euphemisms.

Ren's mouth curls in something that might pass for a smile. “I had punctured lungs, bruised kidneys, and more broken bones than you. I won't be fit enough for that for some time.”

“Oh, then…. I guess I'll cope,” Hux assures him. It should sound ironic. He doesn’t quite succeed in keeping the relief out of it.

“I could still blow you,” Ren muses, and when Hux starts to shake his head, he adds almost accusingly: “You like that. I have seen it in your mind.”

“What you can see inside my head during sex is my lizard brain,” Hux says, surprised with his own straightforwardness. “Of course one likes it. As for the higher functions that I would like to call my _self_... not so much.”

This is as close as he can get to outing his shameful secret. That he needs something else from Ren than what he asked for.

Ren doesn't seem surprised by the fact. He looks more surprised to hear Hux's own admission of it. “Why?” he prompts.

Hux rubs at his face and resists the urge to bite his own fist to keep himself from talking about this. But if anything was overdue...

“You're just too bloody good at it. Whereas I am objectively very bad at it, at least compared to you. It's not… appealing to my sense of self worth, to say the least.”

To say the very least.

Ren remains in thought for a long time before he speaks, long enough for Hux to itch with the urge to squirm. Ren is not buying it, he knows there's more, _way to make everything about your damn pride, Armitage-_

“Can you believe that once we could have been just perfect for each other?” Ren asks at last. He doesn't call Hux out on the obvious deflection. Maybe he's finally learned mercy.

“I doubt it,” Hux plays along happily, thinking back on their first conversation as a married couple. Two hapless virgins, what an awkward disaster that would have been.

“We could have been,” Ren insists, scowling. “If you hadn't been such an asshole-”

“And you hadn’t reacted like a butt hurt drama queen-” Hux counters, lightning quick and with a fire he didn’t know he had in him, and to his greatest surprise Ren throws his head back and laughs. Hux joins him with an uncertain chuckle before he can think better of it. The tension in the room drops so suddenly his head is reeling.

“We have both been rather mean to each other,” Ren admits, that warm half smile now firmly on his face. “Really well matched in this regard, aren't we, husband?”

“I suppose.” Hux doesn't really want to think about other aspects in which they could be well matched too, like dry wit, bloodlust, and stars forbid, command over the First Order armies. He pats the mattress next to him. “Come to bed, husband.”

***

 

Convalescence is a tedious process, no med droid has to waste its batteries explaining that to Hux. One particular aspect of it should especially drive Hux up the wall - the fact that apart from the bridge roll calls and command meetings, he has to spend most of the time resting in the confines of his quarters. With Ren, who’s also been ordered home rest.

It’s… not as awful as Hux feared it would be. A month into their cohabitation, they still haven't killed each other. Ren goes to physiotherapy regularly and comes back exhausted and not in the mood for idle chatter, and sometimes he meditates for hours on end and he could well be mistaken for a piece of furniture during that. One time, Hux had been seriously tempted to place a cup of caf on the top of his head, just to see how long it would stay there.

So it’s not as if Hux doesn’t appreciate the peace. It’s just that the quietness makes the boredom he suffers somehow more acute. He can’t immerse himself in Starkiller plans like he would love to, his fingers still can’t close around a pen, his healing pelvis still protests against sitting for too long and his back was bad even before the injury, making the use of datapads in bed a rare occurrence he always regrets in the morning. He’s not far from starting sneakily tinkering with Ren’s lightsaber - that thing doesn’t look stable anyway.

The package sits still and somewhat ominous on their dining table when Hux gets back from his round of inspections. It’s not marked. Hux calls in a BB unit and has it scanned - their investigation into the explosion showed some nebulous leads to the Resistance but Hux doesn’t want to rule out infighting definitely. Getting asleep on one’s laurels is the surest way to lose them.

The scan reading shows a bunch of inactive electronics. Nothing explosive or poisonous. Hux briefly contemplates waiting for Ren and then tears through the packaging, eager to see what’s inside.

“It’s an interactive designer projector,” calls Ren from behind him. He’s leaning against the door - it must have opened while Hux was removing the protective stuffing, it still rustles beneath his feet. He sounds amused, not offended - which means that the delivery is not for him. Rather, from him.

“Why?”

“You’re bored and I don’t like the way the Force vibrates around you when you are,” Ren shrugs. “Figured this might do the trick.”

 _So sorry my condition is inconveniencing you,_ Hux wants to snipe and then he remembers that his condition is _alive, thanks to Ren,_ and keeps his mouth shut.

“I’ve only seen those during my visit to Sienar-Jaemus.” Hux has also been dying to get one for himself ever since he saw them in use in the development laboratories, but the First Order number-pushers wouldn’t hear of approving such an expenditure for a single person’s use. The excursion was a part of their negotiations for a line of advanced TIE/sf, and they had struck quite an advantageous deal at the time.

“I know. Your admiration of them was hard to miss,” Ren teases and Hux huffs. Fine, he probably looked like a child on the fairground - but to be fair, Ren had been just as much taken when he was offered to fly the fresh-off-the-line Silencer prototype. Come to think of it, the Sienar representatives suddenly became much more cordial and open to discussion of prices _after_ Ren demonstrated his piloting skills...

“Where did you get it?” Hux sets the projector base on the floor and activates it. Blue lines of the basic matrix flicker to light around him. They ghost out and resettle themselves again as Ren steps through them, closer to Hux.

“Sienar can be very grateful when there is a deal for a whole new line of upgraded fighters on the horizon for them,” Ren shrugs with a small smirk. Hux mirrors it. Technically, this is bribery. Pragmatically…

“I didn’t know you had a knack for shady business,” Hux says.

“I’d rather not have it,” Ren winces and turns to the table without further explanation. For a second, Hux wonders what the hell he said wrong _, again_ , and then Ren turns back, holding up the sensor garters. “Need help with these?”

“Yes,” Hux allows. The sensors come with loops of elastic - some to be placed around his fingers, two around his wrist, one up above his elbow. Once they’re activated, the projector will pick up on their signal and integrate it to the projection controls. Hux won’t need to endlessly scroll through flat pages of plans, feel his hand go numb around a pen or type lines and lines of code if he wants to change a little detail in the visualisation. He will become a part of the projection, grasping and positioning the lines with just a slight movement of his hand.

“There. All set,” Ren smiles again and lets his arms fall. Hux can still feel the phantom tingle of his bare fingers where they loosely held his hand, adjusting the sensors. He can’t recall if they ever touched each other’s hands before, apart from those seconds when Ren was dragging him out of the smuggler’s freighter-

He fiddles with one sensor, trying to calm down his heartbeat. It’s fine, he can be excited, he just got a long wished-for gift. From his husband, of all people.

“Go on, try it,” Ren says quietly. Hux can swear he can feel his body heat even over the many layers of clothing and the scant inches of cool air separating them. He isn’t stepping away.

Nodding mutely, Hux fishes out a data chip from his inner breast-pocket - the one chip he carries with him at all times, for paranoia’s sake or like a lucky charm, he can’t decide - and inserts it into the projector. The layout around them immediately changes, the straight lines curving, the detail spreading and refining itself like a spider’s web in an intricate pattern. Hux lifts his hand and grasps at the circles representing the oscillator, moving it to lay a little more to the north of the projected planet’s hemisphere, and he can’t suppress the delighted laugh that escapes him.

“Starkiller,” Ren says, with something like approval, even pride, and Hux can’t tell if he means the weapon… or him.

 

***

 

Three weeks later, Hux is dragging his feet to his quarters after a particularly nerve-wracking meeting. Damn Peavey and all the other stuffy Imperials, stuck in the dreams of glorious past and unable to even glimpse the future of the First Order. He hates that he has to rely on their structure. If he could redesign the First Order command as easily as he plucks at the lines of his plans, if he could obliterate the morons with just a snap of his fingers…

Correlian is in order tonight, he decides, enjoyed in the rarely indulged-in comfort of his plush sofa and in the soothing silence before Ren gets back from his training…

Hux’s nice plans for the evening get squashed as soon as the door slides open and his tired eyes fall upon the black shape curled into a ball… on Hux’s sofa.

“Oh,” Ren grumbles, as if he just woke. “You’re back early.”

“ _You_ are back early,” Hux points out. “And that’s my sofa.”

“One of the training dummies malfunctioned and wouldn’t obey the override,” Ren mutters. “I eliminated it but… and then, your sofa looked comfortable.” He moves to get up, wincing and groaning under his breath.

Ren has his training gear on, black sleeveless shirt and loose trousers, and his arms are a jumble of black and blue bruises. Hux allows himself a hint of pride at the efficiency of his training droids - evidently they’re capable of doing a number even on a Force user - and then he says, out of nowhere-

“Just stay there, you need rest.”

Ren looks at him and, weary as he seems to be, he’s no less observant. “You’re tired. And it’s your sofa.”

“It’s big enough to fit two,” Hux surprises himself. It happens an awful lot lately whenever he’s around Ren.

They end up occupying the whole length of the sofa, Ren keeping respectfully to one half, long legs stretched out before him and head tilted back against the soft headrest, and Hux sipping his brandy and scrolling through his messages on the other end. Ren’s glass stands mostly untouched on the carpet, Ren’s posture slipping more and more with every passing minute. He’s battered and obviously tired, Snoke is a fool for forcing him to train so brutally…

Ren’s body slumps sideways and his head ends up on Hux’s shoulder. His breath is coming in light snores. His hair falls forward, tickling the hollow of Hux’s throat.

For a moment, Hux doesn’t dare breathe. This feels familiar, somehow, and yet… maybe he imagined it, in those lonely nights with Ren so close and yet so far, at the other side of the bed. Before the accident.

Close on two months since then and they still haven’t resumed their former sex life. Instead there are touches of non-sexual nature - adjustment of a lapel, handing over a cup of caf, brushing past each other in the narrow space of the ‘fresher. Somehow it feels more intimate than whatever they had before. And now this.

Carefully, he shifts, easing Ren’s head into his lap. Ren doesn’t wake, just wriggles a little, snuggling against Hux’s stomach before he settles back into deep sleep. He looks ten years younger, barely a boy out of his teens, his face relaxed and almost incongruously innocent. Hux feels as if he’s privy to some secret from Ren’s past, that this is how he once looked before the Force took over his life. Before his first kill.

Ren stirs again, frowning a little, his soft mouth working. He must be dreaming. He mutters something unintelligible, frowns some more, corners of his mouth tugged down. It can’t be a pleasant dream.

Hux cards his fingers through Ren’s hair, careful not to tug, not to wake him. Just enough to dispel the bad dream. Ren calms down again, his unhappy face smoothing back into blank, unblemished sleep. Hux keeps caressing his hair. It’s exactly as soft as he knew it would be.

 

***

 

Hux flies through the air again, and this time there’s no one to barrel into him from behind. When he rolls over and scrambles up, the freighter is still absurdly intact. He watches it rupture in slow motion, like a sea shell cracking open, a thousand fiery tongues licking out. He watches the fireball expand and rage through the hangar, glacial but unstoppable. He wants to run but can’t move a limb, he wants to scream the order to open the bay door but he can’t make a sound, and then the flames are upon him-

He wakes up in his bed, heart beating so fast it hurts. It was just a nightmare. Three months from the explosion and he still dreams about it, sometimes.

His sleepwear is absolutely drenched in sweat. On a fitful impulse, he tears off the undershirt, kicks away the bottoms. The chilling sensation of the recycled air against his overheated skin is grounding. He can pretend he's shivering from cold, not from the panic.

He burrows back under the covers, closes his eyes again and concentrates on his breathing. In, count to three, out, count to five. Gradually he becomes aware of the crick threatening to spread in his neck if he continues to lie like this, on his stomach. But lying on his back he'd feel too exposed, even under the blanket. He should get up and put on a clean set of sleep clothes. But he’s so tired, and getting out of bed would surely wake Ren, and at least one of them should be getting some rest… He folds his forearms under his head, ignoring the lingering pins and needles, and tries to will himself to sleep again. He is on the mend, he isn't permanently broken.

A hand passes along his back in a light, tentative caress.

"Am I dreaming?" Hux mumbles into his arm. Maybe the pain would go away if he woke up, but then, so would the gentle touch.

"You're not."

The touch returns, tracing the valley of Hux's spine and settling just under his nape, working at the knot there. Hux melts into the attention, the tension leaving him as if spirited away by Ren's magic fingers. He smiles to himself. If this is the Force, he doesn't mind.

“This is nice,” he acknowledges, stretching like a cat in the sun.

Ren's fingers continue their gentle massage, down Hux's back and up again, and again, each time straying lower, pulling down the blanket. Hux shivers at the first brush over his tailbone.

“Still nice?”

The touches are less comforting and more exploratory now, there's teasing behind them, and intent. Hux turns his head in the cradle of his forearms and hums in agreement. It's thrilling, but still nice.

One teasing finger traces along the crack of his ass. Hux's cock starts to take interest in the proceedings and he spreads his legs a little to accommodate the slowly filling up length.

The mattress dips as Ren moves to loom over him. Large hands come to rest on his hips, just their weight holding him down and reminding him to stay still. And then the earlier path of Ren's finger down his spine is followed by his tongue, shockingly hot against Hux’s skin, still cold and clammy after his panic attack. And it doesn't stop.

The first swipe travels over the swell of Hux's ass, down to the sensitive underside of it and ends with a lick over his balls, nestled between Hux's slightly parted legs.

Hux bites his lip and tries not to tense. He has a pretty good idea where this is leading and he wants it, he wants - but -

Ren lays his head over the small of Hux's back and nuzzles him like a favourite pillow. His hair tickles Hux's skin and another sensation tickles at his consciousness. Not words, nothing like Ren's usual mind-splitting, headache-inducing communication. It is more like a complex mood, a whole jumble of feelings, impressions and intentions coming to Hux’s mind like waves gently lapping at the sand shore on a calm day: safety, warmth, care, want, remorse, affection…

When the feeling subsides, Hux's throat is full and his eyes wet, but that's all right, Ren can't see them. And he wouldn’t mind even if Ren could. He licks his lips and whispers back: "Go on."

Ren plants a wet kiss on the dimple at the base of his spine and then just goes for it, spreading Hux's ass cheeks with his large fingers and burying his face between them.

Hux shudders at the first touch of that probing tongue to his hole and bites into the pillow, glad that his arms hide most of the wild blush he can feel burning in his cheeks. Even though nobody is here to see that, he’s still torn between pushing into that sensation of Ren’s tongue licking around and inside his most intimate spot and shying away from it, from the _illicitness_ of it. It’s filthy and Hux can’t get enough of it. Ren’s hands are holding him in place, not as a trap but more like an anchor, and Hux goes boneless under the onslaught and just _takes_ it, all of Ren’s shameless worship, all of his tongue, as deep as it can go.

Which is not deep enough, because after a few more minutes of this beautiful torture Ren withdraws. Hux bites back a disappointed groan at the loss. He still hasn’t opened his eyes, afraid that if he does he’s going to wake up. In the stillness of the room, he can hear Ren’s rough breaths, coming faster than usual, and then a pop of a lid. Before he can place what that sound belongs to, there’s a single blunt fingertip pressing at his hole, spreading slick around and pushing inside.

It gets only as far as to the first knuckle before Hux’s body remembers to tense and clamp down. He’s not afraid, no, the sensation is… not pain, just stretch, lighting sparks of arousal along his spine and coaxing him to relax. Ren’s other hand keeps caressing his ass, his quivering thighs, and the finger inside Hux keeps moving slowly, pulling a little out and sliding back in, and that’s definitely nice. Hux is now hyper aware of every push and tug at his rim and soon even this starts to be not enough.

“More,” he mumbles, afraid at first that Ren didn’t hear him, couldn’t understand him, with the way his tongue feels too big for his mouth and his lips are nearly bitten through. But then the one finger pulls out only to return with another, and Hux can’t bite back the hiss this time. Two fingers are definitely more, the stretch is electrifying but also burning and Ren’s cock is even thicker, he’s never going to fit inside-

“Ah!” Hux tastes blood as he tries to keep any further cries in, his whole body alight with pleasure spreading from one small point inside him, now massaged by Ren’s fingers.

“There,” Ren whispers above him. And then, with another calming caress along his spine even as his fingers work relentlessly against that one spot that’s making Hux writhe and see spots, comes another murmured plea: “Let me hear you.”

Cold mortification seizes Hux from within, almost enough to drown out the white-hot pleasure. All Ren’s mocking words about noise are now ringing in his ears - and then another wave of feeling washes over him, like warm wind melting those shards of ice in his bloodstream. Apology, regret, guilt, compassion, and apology again _, sorry_ and _forgive me, I love to hear you and I couldn’t risk it before, I would’ve lost it and I wasn’t sure what you wanted…_

He lifts his head, blindly seeking for a kiss. Ren whimpers when he tastes blood on his lips and Hux lets him kiss it better, opening up until he can taste nothing but Ren. When Ren’s fingers press down against that spot inside him again, he lets the groan bubble up from his throat and directly into Ren’s mouth, feels Ren shudder - and everything takes on a next level of urgency. Being full of Ren’s fingers is no longer enough.

And then those lovely fingers are gone and there’s slick but solid thickness pressed against him, pushing in. It’s slow but unrelenting, opening him up him inch after inch, and Hux trembles, every nerve ending alive, every sense narrowed down to the point where his body is giving in, taken, owned. He isn’t aware he’s babbling until he has to stop for breath, and it’s then he realises Ren is all the way in, flush against his back, panting into his ear. Hux can feel nothing but Ren and _everything_ of him - his breath, his heart hammering against his back, the twitching of his cock inside himself, the desperate tremble of his muscles, trying to keep still.    

He’s completely overwhelmed. He’s going to split apart and he’s going to _die_ if he doesn’t get to come soon.

“Move,” he begs, “for fuck’s sake, move-”

“Give me a minute,” grits Ren above him, still shaking like a leaf. Hux laughs at the absurdity of it - having Ren finally seconds from coming right when he desperately doesn’t want him to. The laugh shakes him and presses Ren’s cock against some very good place inside him. Above him, Ren groans his name and manages to make it sound like a curse.

“Hux,” and then, “Hux, you feel _incredible_ -”

Oh, and as if having Ren inside wasn’t already enough, he has to whip up his fucking praise.

Hux loses himself in it. Loses himself in the sensations - being pinned beneath Ren’s huge body, the small, gradually intensifying movements of Ren’s length deep inside him, the insistent pleasure coiling at the base of his spine and the rubbing of his cock on the sheets at every thrust. He starts pushing back, lifting his ass up for Ren to slide in deeper. He doesn’t know how long it is until finally Ren’s control breaks and he pulls back, rises on his knees, grips Hux’s hips in both hands and fucks into him hard and fast, right against that perfect spot and Hux comes - every muscle in his body seizing and clenching, Ren’s continuing thrusts wringing wave after wave of pleasure out of him until he’s dizzy, exhausted and completely spent. He sags bonelessly in Ren’s hold, only vaguely registering the stiffening and warm pulse inside him, and then Ren collapses and flattens him back into the mattress. Hux can’t find in him the will to protest.

Eventually, Ren’s softening cock slips out of him and the twinge of sore muscle reminds Hux that there’s a downside to every pleasure.

“Ouch,” he complains. “Ew.” If he doesn’t move, the come currently trickling onto his thigh won’t stain the sheets. This is something he’s never going to like about sex. Ren will just have to put up with his fussiness and prudishness if he wants to fuck him ever again.

“Hold on,” Ren smiles, briefly kisses the corner of his mouth and goes to fetch a wet towel. He gently dabs at Hux’s ass and legs, Hux shuddering at the swipe over his puffy, sensitive hole.

“Did I hurt you?”

Hux stretches. He’s sore, but it feels like a good kind of sore. “No, no I think. But I’ve got three hours of meetings to sit through tomorrow, I suspect that’s going to be a challenge.”

Ren laughs and tosses the towel aside, getting back into the bed and moulding himself along Hux’s side.

“You’ll get used to it,” he says confidently.

Hux lifts an eyebrow at the bold assumption. “Will I?”

“It gets easier with time,” Ren gives a one-sided shrug, still smiling. “And you can’t pretend you didn’t like it. I felt it through your emotions, it was incredibly intense.”

“Fine, you can stop flattering yourself,” Hux quips. He’s sleepy, comfortable, fucked-out and his pillow is right there, he should just stuff it into his mouth to prevent himself from talking....

“Was it this good for you on your first time?” And there it is. Hux has thrown his jealousy out of the door only for it to make a grand comeback through the window.

“You tell me,” Ren retorts, frowning. “You were there after all.”

Hux stares. “ _I_ was the- _what?_ No. That - no.” Just the thought is ludicrous.

Ren stares back. “You think I lied about being a virgin when we found out we’re married?”

“No! Not then,” Hux dismisses it impatiently. “But when you came back from… your _training_.”

“Armitage,” and now Ren is definitely amused, and Hux contemplates strangulation, “what did you think I was doing when I was away, exactly?”

So Hux tells him. Finally he pours it out, every detail conjured by his jealous imagination. How it’s been eating at him, how he couldn’t sleep for the never ending thoughts of who, how many, how well they fucked Ren before him. It’s like a dam breaking, and when he finally runs out of breath, Ren is looking at him with bewilderment and… fondness?

“Hux, are you aware that holonet exists?”

That’s even more ludicrous. “You couldn’t have learned all that just from watching porn!”

“I didn’t,” Ren agrees. “There’s also basic sex ed, and advanced holos when you know where to look, which you probably don’t-” Hux puffs up in protest but Ren continues- “and of course, there’s also toys.”

Hux’s outraged thoughts come to a screeching halt as a completely new series of images begins parading in front of his mind’s eye. His cock twitches against the sheets and - no. He’s definitely too tired for a round two. And damn Ren grinning as if he won a lottery - marriage to a mind-reader has its perks but it’s impossible to keep erotic secrets, apparently.

“I think you’ll like my collection,” Ren says nonchalantly.

“Would you let me watch you using them?” Hux asks, probably more eagerly than it is proper.

“I can think of something better,” and now Ren is looking at him as if Hux is something delicious to eat, and maybe round two wouldn’t be so out of the question… “I think I’m going to use them on you. Every. Last. One.”


End file.
